Robin Revolution: L O V E
by A Wish On the Moon
Summary: The world isn't what it used to be, and the mistake is no one's fault but his own. And so, the First is forced to fix it by doing the only thing he can: living, lying, dying, and — moving on. (The Court of Owls takes, the Terminator molds, and the Bat will never know what he has lost.) Richard Grayson, from Talon to Apprentice, to the Titans, the Team, and Beyond.
1. on a tightrope, flying backwards

**Disclaimer**: I lay no claim to any licensed characters or intellectual properties that were used in the making of this work.

* * *

**on a tightrope, flying backwards**

* * *

Dick Grayson awakens to bright lights and cheering crowds, and his eyes snap open in surprise and confusion. It's only sheer muscle memory that stops him from plunging headfirst to the ground, — for which he's quite grateful, really, but —

He smoothly finishes his trapeze routine, catching his mother's hands, performing as he is wont to do, — _because he's a flyer, isn't he?_ — and all as the voices in his head clamor for attention, clamor for recognition, clamor for their own gain.

_(The only thing they can seem to agree on is the fact that his mother should be _dead_, and that something, somewhere, is horribly, horribly wrong.)_

The forward momentum of his jump pushes him into the fluid swings, and he _moves_ with the sway, — _back and forth and back and forth_ — before he lets go, and —

He's flying, spinning himself over and over and over, completing the quadruple flip that he's so well-known for.

(He is, right?)

He lets his body go through the motions, — eyes glittering, yet blank, seeing something beyond the body — his _smile_ turned up past the normal hundred watts. He seems calm, collected, and carefree; however — inside, he is panicking.

The thoughts are racing through his head, rushing, rushing, far too quickly for him to sort them out. Some images are mixing with the blurring colors, jumping from place to place, randomly enough that he can't keep track of any_one_ or any_thing_.

There are flashes of armored girls with pointy-eared masks — _bats_, he thinks, and he doesn't know _why_ — and a woman with cowl-covered eyes and dark red hair, falling, falling, falling —

There's the sound of a gunshot, the snap of bones, and the rasp of a gruff voice, deep and dark and, somehow, comforting, letting the word '_Batgirl_' float in the air, and he has to consciously force himself not to turn around, not to look back.

'_Barbara Gordon_,' another voice supplies, and — it's familiar, the voice of a spunky girl and a computer genius and an aged, bitter police-officer-turned-commissioner, — the voice, much younger, of a lifetime of promises.

A deeper echo, confusing and old, but young, filled with seriousness and laughter and freedom, supplies the name of '_Oracle_,' and he can't help but agree — though to what, he knows not.

The sounds and sights are enough to open the floodgates, and — he sees fire, passion, — Kori', of Tamaran — darkness and shadow, — Raven, of Trigon — magical, Mediterranean sparks and top hats, — Zatanna, the Magician.

He sees a ginger with freckles, — Wally, Kid Flash — and a girl with blue eyes and heavy, square-rimmed glasses — the new Robin, the Replacement (but shouldn't she have white bangs, a squarer face, _male_ _parts_?). He sees red arrows, — Roy, Cheshire, _Lian_ — crossbows and Italy, — the Huntress, the princess of Gotham, _Catwoman's daughter_ — and street-smart girls — Artemis, Steph, _Carrie_ — and aquatic men, — Kaldur'ahm (the first?), Garth (_the second?_) — a giant "S" on a shield of red — Superboy, _Superman_, _KonKonKon_ — and it all just makes him happier than anything else, even if he can't remember _why_.

He sees black shadows and netted magic, lassoes and flames and men made out of metal. He sees green shapeshifters and haunting beauty, something _alien_ and exotic and far more attractive than it should be, and doesn't know why his heart yearns for their presence once more. It's at the tip of his tongue, at the edge of his lips, at the surface of his skin and at the lids of his eyes, and —

He sees orange-and-black masks, one-eyed and mocking — Wilson, Deathstroke, _Master_. He sees green hair and Glasgow smiles and the whites of the clowns — nothing at all like the ones from the circus, but like trickster, _Jokers_, monsters. He sees demons and death and mob bosses, the cutting of rope and the ultimate plunge, _death_ and _vengeance_ and the untimely fall-out over a man named "_Zucco_."

He sees birds and street rats, blood on his hands and acid on his skin and the broken smiles that mean '_they're alright, they'll live_,' even when the world should know different.

He sees silver hair and blue eyes and darkness, the stars in the sky of space, a lake of lava slowly shifting, turning, becoming a haunting pool of ghostly green, and he shivers mid-jump, nearly ruining the entire act.

(He sees blonde hair, blue eyes — red hair, black hair, golden threads and fiery strands — dark, slanted eyes? The features are all blurring together, little pouts and great, wide smiles and angry, broken eyes, _hunger_ and _connection_ leaking from each of their pores.)

His eyes are glassy, and his mind is racing as his body works on auto-pilot, and it's —

He sees wind and arrows, cards and fire and numbers, — pinpricks of light and black-feathered birds and _batsbatsbats_ — and he thinks each of these things is a little something like love, a little something like friendship and happiness and _family._

He sees subservience reflected in a mercenary's eyes, and he thinks, _'This is respect_, _this is what it means to be powerful, great, to rule the world. _(But it's lonely at the top, isn't it? With nothing and no one to keep him grounded.)

He sees freedom, becoming something greater than he's ever known, and he thinks, _'This is how people fall_, _this is how people rise, and _—_'_

_"I'm a bat,"_ he whispers, _"Flying far, far away,"_ just as he lands, in time with his parents' leaps. His arms fold into a perfected, distracted, performer's bow, and he smiles for the crowd, smiles for his family, _smiles _— for the joy and pain and sadness filling the pockets of his eyelids.

The carnie, circus kid is undoubtedly confused, and he can't seem to get the clashing memories to settle. Nothing makes sense, and the siren's song of '_what-could've-been_' leaves him feeling as if he's made the greatest mistake of his life.

Guilt settles in his stomach, raw and burning. Salt pricks the corner of his eyes, reddening his cheeks, and his mask begins to crack at the edges.

"Robin," a dead woman calls, and he can't help but feel as if there was something _more_.

_(People either live or die, after all, and yet — the images contradict, and he can't tell what's real or not.)_

The ceramic of his face crumbles to dust, and it's not until he's behind the curtains, changing out of the reds, yellows and greens of his family colors, that the tears and shock and fear start — _drip-drip-dripping_ to the floor.

* * *

_(Richard Grayson is but five years old, and it is the last time he will ever see his family.)_


	2. you are my fire, my one desire

**Disclaimer**: I lay no claim to any licensed characters or intellectual properties that were used in the making of this work.

* * *

**you are my fire, my one desire**

* * *

He meets her in the midst of another one of his assassinations.

By now, Dick Grayson has gotten used to the blood and death associated with his tasks. A part of him even enjoys watching the life fade from his victims' eyes; most of him just wants to throw up his innards — _tear out his soul! _— if only so it wouldn't feel as if his heart was drowning as much as it really is.

_(Just because he's acquainted himself with murder doesn't mean he has to like it.)_

Still, this sort of thing is routine: set up the stand and exchange the scope, adjusting the sights until the crosshairs line up — just enough that the kickback after he pulls the trigger won't force the bullet off its course. Simple, really.

Immediately after the movement of the barrel, _un_-assemble the parts, — _dis-_assemble makes no sense, really — remove all evidence of the sniping from the rooftops, and return to the Haunt. No mess, no complications, no emotions. Again, _routine_.

So, when the routine is broken, Robin — _no, Renegade, remember? _— panics.

_(He's not sure if he's ready to let go of his parents so completely, but he's not sure if he deserves the title of "Robin" anymore, and, well, someone already owns that title, doesn't he?)_

It all began earlier, back when he'd voiced his uneasiness in the matter. In hindsight, he should've trusted his instincts, should've trusted that prickling crawl of _tarantulas_ on his skin, that slithering, haunting creep of laughter in his ears and screams in his throat.

_(Tarantulas and Blockbusters were always a bad sign, apparently. So were clowns. And guns. And coin tosses, and ropes and crowbars and dark, dark magic that shouldn't have ever twisted anything out of shape…)_

And, in hindsight? Renegade should've known something most definitely would go wrong when the gears in his grappling gun had locked up. Because, generally? When there's _that_ much apparent bad luck on your side, you don't play Devil's Advocate; you wonder why the heck that oil job hadn't worked and get the _hell_ out of Jump City, California.

It's just as the shot's about to hit his target that a meteor crashes, shaking the foundations of the entire business district and, ultimately, veering the bullet off course enough that it manages to merely shatter the glass. And, when the target — _faceless, nameless, because it's easier not to care if he doesn't know they have lives apart from just _this— looks up from his panicked position sprawled across his desk, eyes widening and jaw settling itself into stubbornness, that the Robin knows he's screwed.

The jugular, heart, liver, lungs — everything was missed, and the bullet managed to nick nothing, nothing, _nothing_. Everything is _not_ okay, and it all becomes a blurry haze of _runrunrun_, of leaping and shooting and grappling, of swinging and tumbling and _flying_ across the city. The mistake _needs_ to be fixed before it gets back to Deathstroke, or else he'll be just as screwed as the guy he'd been sent out to kill.

_(Of course, Slade knows everything, anyways, meaning Deathstroke _knows_, but — the Robin in him can dream, can't he?)_

Finding an opening, Renegade silences the Robin and smothers Dick Grayson, pushing the Acrobat's talents to do what they do best: perform. With a well-placed kick, he crashes through the glass screen and into a thankfully empty office space. A few doors, a few stairwells, and he manages to shadow the businessman long enough that, by the time the target notices, he has a lesser gun pointed at the guy, and several knives holding him pinned to the front of the secretary's overturned desk.

It figures that, just as he's about to make the messy kill and shoot the target right between the eyes, a warm-cold-warm, heavy, heavy weight lands crashes into him from the left, leaving him on the ground, breathless and struggling to breathe. Seriously, what the heck?

In the time it takes Renegade to wake up, Dick has already registered the pain. Renegade's task of compartmentalizing its body's limits and Robin's task of assessing the situation become slightly more difficult. The man takes this momentary imbalance in power to roughly shrug out of his coat and run screaming out the window.

"He better _hope_ he doesn't survive the fall," Robin growls under his breath, letting Renegade imagine the gruesome payback for wasting so much of his time. Dick's too distracted by the sight of fiery red hair and warmth to act as intermediary.

_The Commish's daughter? Isn't she supposed to be in Gotham? _It's safe to assume that this is Barbara Gordon — _Batgirl_, he thinks, but upon further inspection, he's pretty sure this… _person_… is someone else entirely.

_(After all, Babs doesn't have soulless green eyes, or orange skin, or a harsh, guttural voice that sounds as if nails are being ground into sawdust. Also, she doesn't _glow_.)_

_More importantly_, Renegade interrupts, _is the fact that the target has escaped_. Dick cheekily smiles, knowing that he's unable to _move_, let alone _get_ _up_, and so finds no harm in delaying.

Upon further observation, Renegade, too, notices that the weight is a girl. Bright, energy-speckled skin, bioluminescent and orange and splattered with scratches and a sticky, transparent film — either sweat or blood. Long, messy hair, ginger-red and matted with dirt. Emerald-green eyes, lighter sclera, pupil-less. Height of approximately five feet, eight inches. Weight bordering on what Kara can lift.

Conclusion: Subject classifies as Alien, with danger level slightly below Superman's own. Not Thanagarian or Kryptonian, though, nor Martian in origin.

_(On the tip of Robin's tongue, memories lie waiting. _Tamaranean_, he offers, and Dick all too happy to agree.)_

It takes a while for Deathstroke's apprentice, as a whole, to understand that the girl is angry, furious, shouting something exotic, unintelligible, and primal at the world as a whole. Normally, Dick would find the passion on such a — _curvaceous?—_ babe _hot_, but he doesn't have time to enjoy anything about this situation.

_(Besides, villain or not, Babs would _kill_ him if she ever found out he was cheating on her, even if they weren't even dating, even if he hadn't seen her since months ago in Gotham _— _even if it was purely… _aesthetic_… admiration in his mind.)_

The alien girl — _Space Kitty, _Dick corrects, with Robin snickering something about Catwoman getting a new apprentice and the old one graduating — shifts a little, and he can see her arms are bound by mechanical locks, her hair clamped down by a metal plate.

"_S'varf vorn'i form'et!_" she shouts at him, leaning in close enough that he can smell the scent of space on her breath. She pushes her arms closer to his face, as if asking him to take the shackles off. He wishes she could speak something _human_, or if he could talk to her in what _appeared_ to be her native tongue, if only so they could understand one another.

At the very least, it would make this whole misunderstanding go by quicker. Which is. Well. Sort of better for his continued existence.

He doesn't have time to even _try_ to decipher what she means, though. Before she can finish saying, "Goc'ta bu-agna," Renegade has pushed her back and cut through the device with a small laser. Whatever's still holding the bonds together is easily manageable for the girl, and with a tug, the cuffs slide off her arms and fall to the floor like so much water.

The dull thunk of heavy bearings hitting the floor is enough to make Dick wince and Robin to admire the girl all the more.

"Listen, Miss," he begins, because he is nothing if not polite. Deathstroke, like his parents, insists he keep his manners around all company; it makes the information-gathering that much smoother, the killings that much quicker and safer. "I don't really know what you want," _but I do want you to get off of me so I can _go, "but —"

And then he's not sitting up anymore, but lying across the floor, with hands clutching his collar and a body pressing down on him and Space Kitty's lips against Dick's own, and — _"Mmmph!"_

A breath, and then Dick's shouting, stupidly, "_Mi develeskie gueri Mary_!"

"… _Nokkum?_ Who is this Mary, and why is her virginity sacred?"

Renegade is confused, Robin is fascinated, and Dick is a bit too shell-shocked to do much more than open and close his mouth, again and again, like a fish out of water.

Raising what Renegade supposes is an eyebrow, Space Kitty looks at him, confused, before her eyes… the only thing Dick can say is that they _smile_ and _shine_ like the sun he hasn't seen in who knows how long. "I thank you for the freedom that you returned to me."

With Renegade and Robin out of commission, all Dick and his very, very small acquaintance with the female species can utter is, "Uh…"

And then the green _hardens_, and her tongue becoming _wickedly_ deep, as she shoves violet fire in the general vicinity of his mask. "X'hal, _shom to jav_, but that I would warn you. The Citadel is coming; leave, else never will you be safe."

"Uh…"

"Is this not your _jib?_ You seem to be incapable of speaking it."

"Uh…"

"Hmph. _Rutha_."

…Well. _That _word is enough to shake Dick out of his stupor. In fact, it's enough to make Dick's foot-in-mouth confidence boost itself to the point where he asks, stupidly in hindsight, "Um, hey, wanna go get a drink?"

The resulting confusion on her face is accompanied by silence. Renegade chooses this moment to punctuate the bizarre with a shot out the window — one which, miraculously, hits the target; the yelp was a dead give-away, really.

When the girl, who he hasn't even bothered to get to know the name of, let alone understand _how_ she knows English or _why_ she kissed him, finally responds to what cannot be called anything other than asking her out, it is with the only a one-word answer that makes _perfect _sense.

(Definitely more than he's making, at any rate.)

"What?"


End file.
